‘Between life and death there is a library,’ she said.  ‘And within that library, the shelves go on for ever.  Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived.  To see how things would be different if you had made other choices…Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?’

The Midnight Library is a philosophical fable about different versions of a single life, regrets and choices, with a suicidal woman trying out other parallel paths to figure out how she should live (if she survives).  As a friend of mine put it, it makes a better self-help book than a novel.  

As a novel, it simply doesn’t work terribly well.  It’s easy to imagine that the miserable and lonely Nora Seed could have married her ex and been an unhappy rural pub owner, or followed a friend to Australia and drifted into menial jobs.  The small and bland life where she worked in an animal shelter made sense to me.  It’s just possible to believe that she could, somewhere in the multiverse, be a successful scientist studying glaciers, if she managed to be less passive, indecisive, self-pitying, and immature.  But it defies all my sensibilities to imagine her as an Olympic swimmer and self-help guru, or a world-famous pop star.  There’s simply no continuity of her character across these varied lives–leaving the reader, or at least this leader, completely emotionally disengaged.  

If, instead of a novel, we treat this book as some kind of Philosophy 101, it works better.  The concept of multiple universes and what life could possibly be like had one person made different choices is hardly a new one–it comes up everywhere from It’s a Wonderful Life to Groundhog Day to The Family Man to Back to the Future to the Many-Worlds theory in quantum mechanics, to A Christmas Carol, to a multitude of classic science fiction time travel stories.  But it's a popular concept for a reason--we're drawn to these stories, seeking answers, seeking different ways to live, seeking knowledge we don't have.

Best, I think, to take The Midnight Library as self-help and absorb the lessons that Nora painfully learns through exploring different possibilities: be kind, embrace life (the one you have, not the one you didn’t choose), remember that each decision made opens up new opportunities, focus on the positive, let go of regrets and mistakes.  All of this is good, albeit rather unoriginal, advice.  (Sadly, I’m rather doubtful that this kind of new attitude is enough to change suicidal ideation, however.) 

Many people absolutely love this book and have found solace, hope, and empowerment within its pages.  If the story resonates with you, why not keep company with Nora Seed as she checks out different variations of her life for a while? 

NOVEL: The Midnight Library

AUTHOR: Matt Haig

YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 2020

IMAGE: book cover, Viking